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We turn to ask why Quantity is not included among the primary
genera, and Quality also.
Quantity is not among the primaries, because these are
permanently associated with Being. Motion is bound up with Actual
Being [Being-in-Act], since it is its life; with Motion,
Stability too gained its foothold in Reality; with these are
associated Difference and Identity, so that they also are seen in
conjunction with Being. But number [the basis of Quantity] is a
posterior. It is posterior not only with regard to these genera
but also within itself; in number the posterior is divided from
the prior; this is a sequence in which the posteriors are latent
in the priors [and do not appear simultaneously]. Number
therefore cannot be included among the primary genera; whether it
constitutes a genus at all remains to be examined.
Magnitude [extended quantity] is in a still higher degree
posterior and composite, for it contains within itself number,
line and surface. Now if continuous magnitude derives its
quantity from number, and number is not a genus, how can
magnitude hold that status? Besides, magnitudes, like numbers,
admit of priority and posteriority.
If, then, Quantity be constituted by a common element in both
number and magnitude, we must ascertain the nature of this common
element, and consider it, once discovered, as a posterior genus,
not as one of the Primaries: thus failing of primary status, it
must be related, directly or indirectly, to one of the Primaries.
We may take it as clear that it is the nature of Quantity to
indicate a certain quantum, and to measure the quantum of the
particular; Quantity is moreover, in a sense, itself a quantum.
But if the quantum is the common element in number and magnitude,
either we have number as a primary with magnitude derived from
it, or else number must consist of a blending of Motion and
Stability, while magnitude will be a form of Motion or will
originate in Motion, Motion going forth to infinity and Stability
creating the unit by checking that advance.
But the problem of the origin of number and magnitude, or rather
of how they subsist and are conceived, must be held over. It may,
thus, be found that number is among the primary genera, while
magnitude is posterior and composite; or that number belongs to
the genus Stability, while magnitude must be consigned to Motion.
But we propose to discuss all this at a later stage.
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